Hundreds of teachers get layoff notices

Process is ‘emotionally draining,’ says educator at school in Escondido

NORTH COUNTY  Escondido teacher Kelly Solie was notified by her district last week that she may not have a job next school year. It’s familiar ground for the eighth-grade language arts teacher at Del Dios Middle School, who has received five layoff notices in the past six years but has been rehired each time. This year, she’s not so confident that she’ll get her job back.

“It’s emotionally draining,” said Solie, 28. “My heart hurts.”

Solie is one of 77 teachers in the Escondido Union Elementary School District who received layoff notices, along with an additional 30 to 40 teachers on temporary one-year contracts, who could lose their jobs at the end of June.

Around North County, teachers are getting laid off by the hundreds as public school districts struggle with multimillion-dollar deficits. Statewide, nearly 22,000 teachers have received notices that they could be laid off at the end of the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.

The state requires districts to notify teachers by March 15 that they could be laid off in the coming year. Final decisions must be made by May 15. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has already proposed cutting statewide education spending by $2.4 billion, is scheduled to propose his revised state budget in early May. If more money is available for public education, which many educators say is unlikely, the number of teacher layoffs could fall.

Solie, like many of her peers, sees her profession as a calling, one she chose not for the money but because she loves educating children. Solie said she knew she wanted to be a teacher when she was 5 years old. That’s when her father was killed by a drunken driver and she began to help her little sister with school.

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do, and I’m so good at it,” Solie said.

Here is a roundup of tentative teacher layoffs in several districts around North County:

• Cardiff School District — The district issued tentative layoff notices to three tenured teachers. Four temporary teachers on one-year contracts were released.

• Vista Unified School District — The district issued 20 tentative layoff notices — 13 tenured teachers and seven probationary teachers. Sixty-two temporary teachers on one-year contracts were released. More than 150 teaching positions in all were eliminated. Ninety-seven teachers signed up for an early-retirement incentive program, which helped lower the number of teachers who received tentative layoff notices.